Role Models
by Elphaba'sGirl
Summary: "Most boys ages three to fourteen would agree that the most influential people in your life are those you elect as your role models. A father, a brother, a friend, an uncle. Les had them all, and he worked to be just like them." All Les wanted was someone to look up to. Someone who was always there, who wouldn't ever abandon him. Finding that someone was harder than he thought.


**Hi, fandom! How are you? Good? Good. Wonderful. Kay, well, I haven't written anything for this fandom before, so sorry for OOC-ness... I don't own newsies, and enjoy!**

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Most boys ages three to fourteen would agree that the most influential people in your life are those you elect as your role models. A father, a brother, a friend, an uncle... Les had them all, and he worked to be just like them.

When he was four, he found his brother weak, his father tired (for his factory job entailed longer hours than it had in the years prior), and his friends moronic.

So, that left his Uncle Peter. Uncle Peter lived in Virginia and wrote Les once a month, with news from home, (Les missed Virginia; they'd moved to New York only six months before his fourth birthday).

This led to his blacksmith phase (Uncle Peter worked in his own shop, if you can imagine that), and Les lit small fires in the tool shed when Father and Mother weren't looking, trying to morph the rusting tools into new shapes. He kept this up until he burned his arm on a firepoker, (to this day he has a scar), and two months later they received word of Peter's death in a house fire.

Les was too young to completely understand what that meant. All he knew was that his Uncle Peter's letters stopped coming, and the logical thought was that he must have abandoned him.

Fortunately (for Les, at least, but not so much for the rest of his family) his father lost his job the next month, giving Les the opportunity to claim a new role model for his fifth year. His father's hands were calloused from his labor, and he flaunted impeccable vision and shocking strength. Les took to following Henry Jacobs around day and night, dressing like him, walking like him, and he even began spitting like him.

But without Henry's job, the Jacobs family was growing thinner and thinner, and their head realized that something must be done. No job could be found, and with two growing boys, a daughter, and a wife under his roof, the meager wages that came from sweeping chimneys and begging didn't even begin to cover their needs.

Henry had been an honest man, at least, relatively speaking, and considering it was New York, but the night before Les's sixth birthday, he stole food for his family. When the peddler caught him in the act, he flung the knife he carried at his waist at him, not aiming to kill, but to stave him off so he could get away. Still, the salesman took the blade in his stomach, and Henry Jacobs was left with blood on his hands.

His sentence would be three years in jail, but of course, Les couldn't understand this, so he woke up on his sixth birthday thinking that his father had abandoned him.

His brother David, by this time, was thirteen, and Les began to look to him as a role model. For the first time, the Jacobs boys looked for work, (or, well, David did. Les just tagged along). Their mother found a job sewing, and Sarah, their sister, took a job at a mill, but it paid very little, and Mother wanted her to quit, mostly due to the long hours. Still, she held onto the forty cents a week, until Mother got a job in a factory, which paid four dollars a week.

The new job made things a little easier on the Jacobs family, but David began shining shoes to bring in extra money. Les was proud to be related to a real working man, even if David was only fourteen.

So, the two brothers worked together on the streets and came home on a good night with a quarter.

Les noticed that David ate every meal with a fork and a knife, like a real gentleman. He began to act like one, too, and Les followed shortly. The younger brother began combing his hair in the morning, tipping his hat at ladies he saw on the streets, and washing behind his ears without being told.

When Les was nine, his father was released from prison. He struggled with finding a job for ten months, until he finally started work in a factory. He was paid $3.50 a week, but with the added mouth to feed in the household, his and Mother's jobs barely managed to cover the family's expenses. Even with Les and David bringing in ¢25 a day, they barely made a dent in their fund to move back to Virginia.

Then Father broke his leg in an accident at work, and without that income, David and Les were working even harder. The brought their sales up to ¢45 cents on a good day, but it wasn't enough to keep food on the table.

David started giving half of his supper to Les and Sarah, alternating so that they would accept it. Soon, he split his lunch, too, and gave half to their wounded father. He sold anything he could spare, even going so far as to take the mattress off his bed and sell the frame. It was because of David that they pulled through another month of rent.

Still, it wasn't enough.

A week later, he kept the door to his room blocked with a chair (not that anyone would come in without knocking, in the Jacobs household) so that they wouldn't see that he slept on a blanket on the floor, and that bare walls surrounded him.

Les was the first to notice David getting thinner. Dark bags formed under his eyes, and when confronted, denied that he was hungry, or even tired.

In truth, David hadn't eaten anything in two days. He split his lunch, gave half to Les and half to Sarah the first day, then split his supper and have half to Mother and half to Father. Next day, he split his lunch, giving half to Father and half to Mother, and his supper (half to Sarah, half to Les).

Les figured it out first, and forced two whole meals down his brother's throat.

It wasn't enough. David spent every waking hour looking for work. Shoe shining wasn't cutting it anymore.

Les, David said, was too small to come with him during the day, and when Les pouted and argued, his brother told him that with Father hurt, Mother and Sarah needed him home to protect them. Les thought that was true, so he stayed home, and followed David's lead.

He split his lunch, and gave half to Mother and half to Sarah. Then at supper time, he gave his whole supper to Father. Henry Jacobs didn't think anything of it (he was delirious; his leg was infected, but they didn't have the money to hire a doctor to either treat it or set it properly), but Sarah noticed two days later when Les, who had sold his last belt for ¢50 on the street, had to use a rope to hold his trousers up around his waist. She lectured him on it, and made sure he ate come supper time.

She thought that Les didn't know, but she yelled at David for letting their little brother think that it was okay to starve himself for his family.

David talked to Les the next morning.

"If you really want to help," David said, "come with me to find a job."

Les agreed, and the next day, the brothers set out.

No one was really looking to hire two children for anything (well, anything legal anyway), but David led Les through the seedy parts of Manhattan to where a throng of boys was gathered.

"Where are we, Davey?" Les asked, clutching his brother's hand.

David didn't reply, but walked up to one of the boys on the outer edge of the crowd. "Excuse me, but what's going on here?"

The boy turned around. Les stepped behind his brother. The boy was about four years older than Les, with an eyepatch covering one eye. "Wha's goin' on? We's buyin' our papes, tha's wha's goin' on."

"Papers?" David queried. "Why?"

"We's newsies. 'S what we do."

Newsies. It was the first time Les had heard the word, and it rang in his head like a song.

In no time, the brothers joined the throng, and when it was David's turn to buy his papers, he drew a ten cent piece from his pocket (it'd come from selling a book of poems Uncle Peter had given him for his tenth birthday) and plunked it on the table.

The newsies' price was two papers for a penny, and the man behind the counter handed David a stack. David, because he was an honest boy, counted them out.

"Excuse me, sir, but you only gave me nineteen papers," David told the man.

He turned his steel grey eyes on the newest newsboy. "You callin' me a liar, kid?"

David felt his face grow hot as the other newsies' eyes turned to him, sparkling with excitement. This sort of thing didn't happen every day.

David set his jaw. "I want that other paper."

Les silently applauded for his brother, but his heart started to pound as two of the other men started toward him.

Suddenly, one of the newsboys stepped forward, took the papers from David, and flipped through them, eyes closed. He set them down on the counter. "Nineteen, Weasel." He shrugged. "An honest mistake, I'm sure, on account of Oscar can't count to twenty with 'is shoes on." The boy- David guessed he was about seventeen- smiled wickedly.

This boy was dressed the same as the other newsies, but he held himself differently. He was strong, with a light in his green eyes that none of the others held. Les stared up at him in awe, thinking that this was the kind of man he wanted to grow up to be.

The newsie and David had a short, angry conversation, and then Les saw the green-eyed boy turn. David grabbed Les's hand and pulled him along after him, a stack of papers in his other hand.

Les caught sight of a cowboy hat dangling down the boy's back. A cowboy hat!

David caught up to him, and shoved the stack of papers at him. The boy caught them easily, which only made David's already warm cheeks flush further. "These papers are yours. I don't take charity. I don't even know who you are-"

"Cowboy," Les said admiringly.

The Cowboy turned and grinned at Les, and his smile was warm and friendly. "Well, that and a lotta otha things- 'ncludin' Jack Kelly, which is what m' mudda called me." Jack spoke smoothly, the easy smile stuck on his face. "Whatta they call you, kid?"

Les stood as tall as he could, smiling to match Jack. "Les. This is David. He's my brother, and he's older."

Jack didn't even look at David. "No kiddin'. How old're ya, Les?"

"Near ten," Les said proudly.

Jack ran a large, calloused hand over his jaw. "No good. Anyone asks, you're seven."

Les wondered why he had to be seven again. Seven hadn't been a good year for him. At any rate, not as good as nine was turning out to be.

"Younger sells more papes, kid, and if we's gonna be partners-"

Jack Kelly was a mind reader, Les thought, and he didn't hear anything after that. All he could think was that his new partner- partner, imagine that- was incredible. He was a Cowboy. He was the best salesman this side of 5th Avenue.

And- for once- somebody needed him. David had never needed him. Father had never needed him. He'd never been needed before, and it felt good.

Over the next weeks, Les got to know Jack. He told him epic tales of real cowboys out west, when the sky grew dark and their sales slowed down. They'd walk down the streets together, and think of colorful sunsets and a little town called Santa Fe.

"Ya can see the stars in Santa Fe, kid," Jack said dreamily one night, after Les had sold their last paper to an old lady who called him "pumpkin" and gave him a quarter.

"Stars?"

"Yeah, it ain't like it is here. Here, the sky's as dark as the hearts of the people on the streets."

Les continued walking beside him in silence for a minute. "Why are things so dark here, Jack?"

"Because this town don't sleep, so it's gotta be a little dark all the time, 'steada real dark jus' at night." Jack smiled again, wistful as he thought of Santa Fe, and it's stars. "The sun's bigger there, too."

"Why?"

"'Cause Santa Fe's got bigger hearts, and the sun likes it better there than it does here." Jack sat down, his feet tired from walking all day, and Les sat next to him. David had stayed home today; he had a fever. Les felt a bit guilty that he almost liked it better this way. "Once I save up enough, I'm leavin' New York fer good."

"My family is saving up to go home to Virginia. My Aunt Ellen lives there, and my Uncle Peter used to, but he doesn't anymore." Les sighed. "But we aren't even close to being able to buy one train ticket, let alone five."

Jack nodded stoically, but broke into a grin again after a moment. "Let's divvy up then, kid."

It'd been a good day. Four dollars and sixty cents, most of it in dimes, but a few quarters. This, Les calculated, (because David had been teaching him maths,) meant two dollars and thirty cents each.

But Jack counted out three dollars and handed the coins to Les.

"You did the maths wrong, Jack," Les said.

Jack scooped up the remaining dollar and sixty cents, shaking his head. "Nah, you keep it."

"That's not fifty-fifty, like we agreed." The original agreement had been sixty-forty, but as the three boys grew closer, they amended the agreement (or, Jack amended it).

"So?"

"David says that agreements should be honored." Les frowned.

Jack ran a hand through his sweaty hair. "Look, there's only one 'a me, but there five 'a you. Put it toward Virginia or somethin'."

"But what about Santa Fe?"

Jack shrugged. "I can be a dreamer a while longer. 'Sides, I can't leave 'till you do."

"Why?"

Jack laughed and ruffled Les's hair. "I'm gettin' too fond 'a you, Les."

Les beamed.

The street lamps bathed Jack's features in gold, and Les wondered if starlight would do the same. He wondered if there were stars in Virginia.

He wondered if he'd want to go back to Virginia, knowing that Jack was out west, in Santa Fe.

"Can I come to Santa Fe with you, Jack?" Les asked.

Jack looked at him, and the gold light hit the back of his head, bathing his features in shadows. "I dunno if you's folks'd appreciate me runnin' off ta Santa Fe with ya."

Les looked down at his hands, closed around the three dollars. "I suppose. I'll miss you, Jack."

"I'll miss ya too, Les." Jack stood, dusting off his hands on his trousers as he slid his coins into his pocket. "Now, let's getcha home, or Davey'll have my head."

**So? Good, bad? Favorite lines? Questions, comments, concerns, etc.? Thanks for reading!**


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